Navigation and Important Concepts
Last updated: October 22, 2026
Kion is a multi-cloud governance platform that gives you clearer visibility into cloud usage, easy ways to control costs, and scalable methods to automate compliance in the cloud. We make it easier to get things done in the cloud.
In this article, we will talk about the different areas of Kion and some of the larger concepts behind how we work with your cloud resources. In addition to this article, you may want to watch this demo video to see how all the pieces work together.
Navigation
At the top of the screen, is the top navigation bar. From left to right, there is a search field, a Lux button (if Lux is enabled), a plus (+) button for creating and connecting items, a button to take you to help documentation, a notification bell, and a user dropdown menu.
On the left-hand side of the screen, is the left navigation menu, which contains easy shortcuts to the main sections of Kion. Within each subsection of the left navigation menu, what you can see and do will depend on your level of permission.
Dashboard
You can build a custom dashboard on the Kion landing page for easy access to the links, information, and metrics that are most important to you. The contents of your Kion dashboard are unique to your login, so the settings you choose will not affect the dashboard for other users at your organization. See Dashboards for more info about the dashboard.
OUs
OU is an abbreviation for organizational unit. OUs are building blocks that act as containers for projects or other OUs and allow you to build out a hierarchy that reflects your company’s organizational structure in the cloud. The hierarchy you build will determine the pathways and groupings for fund allocation and policy inheritance. For more information about OUs, see What is an OU?
All OUs. Filter and sort OUs from this page. If you select a specific OU, you are directed to that OU’s details page, where you can view in-depth information about the OU’s financials, enforcements, automation, compliance, identity, users, and permissions. For more information, see OU Details.
Organization Chart. Within the OUs section of the left navigation menu, there is a link for the Organization Chart which gives you a bird's-eye view of your organization’s entire structure by showing the hierarchy of your OUs. For in-depth information on how to use the organization chart, see Organization Chart.
Projects
Projects are the smallest unit of organization within Kion. Projects are where you attach your cloud accounts. For more information about projects, see What is a Project?
All Projects. Filter and sort projects from this page. If you select a specific project, you are directed to that project’s details page, where you can view in-depth information about the project’s accounts and scopes, financials, enforcements, automation, compliance, identity, users, and permissions. For more information, see Project Details.
Request New Project and Request Project Access. Within the Projects section of the left navigation menu, there are links to pages where you can request new project creation and access to existing projects. For more information on project requests, see Requesting Project Creation and Requesting Project Access.
Financials
Financials in Kion are primarily managed through project budgets, OU financial thresholds, funding sources, and financial enforcements. For information on how all of Kion's financial tools work together, see Getting Started with Financial Management.
Project budgets track and estimate spending from the project level. With budgets, you can set funding values on a yearly, quarterly, monthly, or custom basis. You can also create fixed or cumulative budgets, based on how you want to plan your spending.
OU financial thresholds track and estimate spending from the OU level. They are set on OUs and represent the maximum, upper-limit of spend by projects descending from that OU.
Funding sources are used to allocate funding to specific OUs and projects.
Financial enforcement actions are configurable actions you can set to trigger on a funding source, project, or OU when a spending limit is surpassed.
In the left navigation menu, funding sources are found under Reporting & Financials, along with Reporting, Savings Opportunities, Billing Rules, and Reserved Instances.
All Funding Sources. Filter and sort funding sources from this page. If you select a specific funding source, you are directed to that funding source’s details page, where you can view in-depth information about the funding source’s financials, OUs, enforcements, users, and permissions. For more information, see Funding Source Details.
Allocations and Recalls. If you have allocations mode enabled, you can view allocation history and, depending on your level of permission, allocate or recall funds here. For more information on these features, see Allocations Mode.
Accounts
Accounts are your cloud accounts (AWS accounts, Azure subscriptions, and Google Cloud projects). Accounts are contained within projects, which are in turn contained within OUs. Only those with higher-level permissions are able to view cloud accounts. For more information, see Getting Started with Account Management.
Beneath Accounts & Scopes in the left navigation menu, there are links to sections where you can view all accounts, all scopes, billing sources, Google Cloud Service Accounts, and Azure CSPs. The account cache is on the Cache tab of All Accounts, and Azure enterprise agreements (EAs) are managed as billing sources. For more information, see Account Details and Billing Source Details.
Cloud Resources
Use the Resource Inventory section of the left navigation menu to view, filter, and search for resources in your cloud accounts. We provide a complete inventory of your cloud resources along with their spend data, tags, and compliance status. For more information, see Resource Inventory Overview
Reserved instances are a way to purchase the use of AWS resources at a discounted rate. This option, found under Reporting & Financials in the left navigation menu, only shows if you have enabled reserved instances in the system settings. For more information, see AWS Reserved Instances.
Users
Users are individuals with access to Kion, which may or may not correspond 1:1 with users of your cloud accounts. For more information about users, see Managing Users.
All Users. Filter and sort users from this page. If you select a specific user, you are directed to that user’s details page, where you can view in-depth information about the user’s user groups, projects, OUs, funding sources, cloud rules, and permissions. For more information, see Managing Users.
User Groups. Within the Users section of the left navigation menu, there is a User Groups section, which functions similarly to the Users section, but for user groups. User groups make it easier to manage teams. Instead of adding a user individually to each project they need access to, create a user group representing a team and add all the team members to the group. You can then grant permissions to the user group and manage the users in a single location. For more information, see Managing User Groups.
Within the Users section of the left navigation menu, you can also manage identity management systems and AWS long-term access keys. Permissions and permission schemes are managed under Settings > Permissions. For more information on managing access control, see:
Automation
Cloud management in Kion is primarily done through cloud rules. Cloud rules are collections of cloud-specific resources that can be applied to cloud accounts, such as policies, templates, and compliance standards. For information about which resources are applied through cloud rules, see What is a Cloud Rule?
Within the Automation section of the left navigation menu, there are links to the automation Overview, CloudPulse, Automation Policies, Action Plans, and Custom Variables. The Cloud Rules submenu has links to cloud rules, webhooks, and policies, definitions, and templates for AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud resources. For more information, see:
Compliance
The Compliance Overview shows multiple measures of compliance at a glance and lets you address findings easily. For more information, see Compliance Overview.
Within the Compliance section of the left navigation menu, there are links to the Overview, All Compliance Standards, All Compliance Checks, and Compliance Programs. For more information, see:
Savings Opportunities
The Savings Opportunities Overview shows you changes you can make to over-provisioned or abandoned cloud resources to reduce your cloud spending. Our goal is to help you only pay for what you actually need. You can learn more about savings opportunities by reading What is a Savings Opportunity? and Savings Opportunities Overview
Note: Savings opportunities must be turned on in the system settings in order to use them. For more information on how to do this, see Savings Opportunities Settings.
Requests
The Requests section of the left navigation menu shows any pending request actions and initiated requests that apply to you. These include requests from your team for access to projects or to create new projects. You can also toggle from pending requests to request history via the tabs. For in-depth information on requests, see Requests.
Reporting
Click Reporting & Financials > Reporting in the left navigation menu to generate system-wide reports. From this page, you can build spend reports, or reports by item type for OUs, projects, users, accounts, billing sources, and funding sources. For more information about reports, see Reporting Overview.
Settings
System Settings is where admins set up and make changes to the back end of Kion. For more information on system settings and how to set these up properly, see Settings.
In the Settings section of the left navigation menu, there are also links to My User Settings, Labels, Permissions, the Audit Log, System Diagnostics, and Integrations.